In all, the pair collected about 330 cups, more than enough for two round-trip flights for each of them. “It’s pretty disgusting work, especially when you grab a handful of chewed meat,” says Danielle, who asked that her full name be withheld to ensure that AirTran would honor her claim. “But it’s about the only way I can afford to see my family [in San Luis Obispo, Calif.].”

It’s getting nuts. The article quotes the going rate for a single ticket as going for a buck fifty—more than it costs to buy the cup with soda at Wendy’s. People are literally being paid to dumpster dive.

It’s been a few years since we traipsed in the greasy backs of fast food alleys, so we may be out of practice. Getting a $700 round-trip ticket for just a couple hours of digging almost sounds worth the trouble. Have any of you make a fortune digging through Wendy’s trash yet? (Thanks, Ryan!)

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Haha, yeah I partook in a bit of dumpster diving. Gotta, gotta have gloves. Washing them off is the worst part. I also gathered cups by buying them though. It’s def a hell of a deal. After all said n done, I got 4 rt tickets total for under $100.

I’ve just been buying the cups outright. It’s still not that expensive, since up until recently a medium soda (the smallest size that includes the coupon) was only $1.19. With 64 cups needed for a round-trip, it comes to about $75-80 per r/t. It’s not free, but it’s still cheaper than retail, and you don’t to wind up with a fistful of someone else’s lunch. Not to mention, who the hell knows what else is getting tossed into those garbage cans? Way too many bodily fluids for me to stick my hand in there.

You really have to scratch your head and wonder what was Air Tran thinking when they strung this together? The pulled out of the DFW / LAX market because they couldn’t compete with AA. Now they’re giving away the farm. No wonder the travel industry is so screwed up.